Page 11 of Shades of Scars

“As much as I agree, for now, we can’t. Trust me, it’s taking all of my willpower not to break down her door and haul her back to the penthouse like a caveman. But she needs to learn to trust us. We have to earn her heart, and we can’t use force. She will bolt at the first sign of trouble. I saw it in her eyes that night.”

Surprise flashes through me momentarily at how level-headed Caito’s being about this. Usually, he’s the ‘act first and ask forgiveness later type’. “So we just wait for her to come to us? I don’t like the sound of that.” Understatement of the century. “We need to make her see she’s better off with us. We can protect her and keep her safe from whoever she’s hiding from. Until she’s comfortable enough to tell us who the fucker is, then we can rip his spine out and choke him to death with it for ever laying a hand on her in the first place.”

Caito grins over at me once I finish like the undiluted psychopath I know he is. “I like the sound of that last bit, but all jokes aside, we give her space. It’s what she needs. We’ll just make sure it’s incredibly hard for her to ignore our existence.” He shrugs with a mischievous glint in his eye that tells me he’s up to no good.

“Alright. I’m in. What’s the plan?” I’ll probably come to regret it, but there’s no backing down now.

I’m going to woo the panties right off of my omega. Whatever it takes.

7

Scarlett

“Okay, seriously, Scarlett? What the actual fuck is all of this? Did you lose your marbles and go on an online shopping spree?” Kate’s shrill voice rings out from the living room, all the way to my room, where I’m hiding like a war veteran with extreme ptsd inside of my nest.

I don’t respond, refusing to acknowledge what I know she’s just discovered. “Scarlett!” She snaps, her voice closer than it’d been before, and I know she must be in the doorway of my room. I should’ve locked the damn thing before retreating to my nest after receiving the last surprise delivery an hour ago.

Nine agonizing days have passed since I’d run into my scent matched alphas, and now, they’re playing dirty with me.

Whoever would’ve guessed that materialistic things delivered daily to my doorstep would make such massive dents in my super alpha related defenses.

Today there had been nine massive edible arrangements, all in the shapes of zoo animals, and they’re now taking up all the available counter space in the kitchen.

Currently, I’m curled up underneath the eight blankets made of the softest material known to mankind from yesterday, while being surrounded by the seven giant teddy bears from the day before that.

There are six bouquets of roses in various shades dominating the small kitchen table, and five cartons of chocolate milk inside of the refrigerator. Normally, I would’ve wondered how they’d known that chocolate milk was my favorite thing in the entire world, but I’m already too freaked out to even begin processing that.

I peek out from my nest to find Kate standing in the middle of my room, clutching the bag with the four pairs of obscenely sexy lingerie sets from a boutique on the other side of the city. The one that’s way too expensive for my usual tastes. My roommate knows that, too. I think that’s why she looks confused as hell when our eyes finally meet.

“Are you going into heat?” She sniffs the air, noting the elevated aroma of my perfume, but I finally sit up, pushing some of the stuffed bears out of the way. She wrinkles her nose at them, but doesn’t comment when she drops the bag she’d been holding on the floor by the edge of my bed.

“No.” It’s a simplistic answer, and she narrows her eyes on me.

“What is going on, Scarlett? Do you have some sort of secret admirer?” Her gaze flicks to my exposed, ruined shoulder. There’s that same question in her eyes that she’s never dared ask me before.

I know I can’t keep up this charade forever. I won’t tell her about the mark. That’s one horror I’m not willing to let myself relive at the moment. However, Icanbe honest about the reason for the absurd gifts littering our small apartment. It’s an easy enough confession.

“I wasn’t entirely truthful to you about what happened on that Saturday night the last time you brought it up. I did have an interview. AtRaven, specifically. For the vocalist position that was posted on the city hall bulletin board.” Confusion furrows her brow as she stands there, processing my words.

“Why would you lie about that?”

I shake my head. “It wasn’t about the interview. I…” I trail off, really struggling to put the reality of my situation into actual words.

Lifting my chin, it barely wobbles as I force the words out into a rushed confession. “Mr. Madden, the owner of the club… He’s my scent match. And there was another there that night, too. I’m pretty sure they belong to a pack. There might be others, but I took off before I could find out anything else about them.”

Kate’s shocked into silence for several long, agonizing minutes. Then, she squeals, the sound sending a shudder down my spine as I watch her jump up and down like an overexcited puppy who’s just been presented with a bag full of treats. “Holy shit, Scar!Holyfuckingshit! You met your scent matched alphas?! How could you keep this from me? Oh my God. Why are you here right now, wallowing away inside your nest instead of shacking up with them?”

She fires each question at me in quick succession, making my head spin. This is the hard part. Trying to explain to her exactly why I can’t claim them, without getting too close to the truth for comfort. If she’s smart, I believe she can put two and two together to figure it out.

The bond mark on my shoulder that’s clearly taken something incredibly hot to try to burn it away. The fact that I’m even in Black Tide Valley in the first place. She knows as well as I do that only the desolate and broken flee here. She might’ve been born here, but I wasn’t. She chose to stay in this city because she wants to.

I stay because it’s either this prison cell, orhis.

Kate falls into another stretch of silence that spans a few minutes, and I watch her work through everything from where she still stands in the center of my room. I take the time to easemyself out of the comfort and warmth of my nest, moving to my wardrobe to grab some clothes to make a trip to the Parkway.

Finally—softly—she says, “Whatever your reasons for being here in the city of rejects, you can’t throw something like a scent match away, Scar. It’s special, yes, but it’s so much more than that. You should give it a chance. It might just be the thing you need the most in life.” The way she speaks gives me pause. It’s almost like she knows exactly what it feels like to lose something like that.

It makes my heart constrict painfully in my chest.

---